Devotion(10)

I laughed. For a moment I wondered if there could be truth in what she said. The mist had thickened, and with her white hair it looked as though she might suddenly be absorbed into the cloud about us.

Pain licked across my hand. I had unthinkingly closed my palm across my blade.

Thea placed her load of kindling on the ground and picked up the knife I had dropped, fingers careful around the handle. ‘Have you hurt yourself?’

‘Not much.’

She peered at my palm, creased with blood. ‘You should probably go home and wash it. Dress it with a little honey.’ She smiled at me. ‘At least I know you’re telling the truth.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Ghosts don’t bleed.’ She stooped to bundle up her sticks again.

‘How do I know you’re not a ghost?’ I asked.

‘You don’t.’ That smile again, lip catching on pointed tooth. ‘Pleased to have met you, Hanne. I hope your hand heals quickly.’

She walked on. I watched her disappear into the white.


The next time I saw her was at worship.

The elders of Kay had continued to hold services in the forest after the church was locked, although not every Sunday. Communion was only held on clouded nights, or, if it was clear, under a small sliver of moon. Attending families were asked to take different paths into the forest so as not to arouse suspicion. Hymns were sung through the nose.

On this night it was Papa’s turn, as an elder, to hold the lay service. The single lantern had already been lit and the men and women were standing in their separate groups. Mama pulled me with her into the cluster of waiting women, tight smile on her face, as my father cleared his throat, looking, like any disfigured man with a Bible in hand, rather unsettling. There was a low murmur and, while at first I thought it was the kind of muted approbation reserved for latecomers, I soon realised that the Eichenwalds were there amongst us, and that this was the reason for flutterings of interest. It had been many months since anyone had joined our dissenting group of worshippers.

As Papa commenced the prayer meeting – lamenting, as always, the absence of the persecuted pastor and comparing our congregation to the early Christians, facing down the Union Church as lion’s maw – Anna Maria turned around and nodded at me. Then she gently nudged the person standing next to her.

It was the girl from the forest.

Thea.

She wore a headdress in her mother’s fashion, but it was lazily done, and in the darkness I saw white hair escaping from its bindings. Thea looked over her shoulder and her eyes met mine. She held my gaze for a long moment, then, as my father began his sermon, turned back around.

‘I was born in Harthe,’ Papa was saying. ‘And in Harthe, because everything was done according to tradition and custom, the Son of God had become customary.’

I glanced over at Matthias and saw him already looking at me from the corner of his eye, mouth twitching. This was a favourite story of our father’s, one he frequently folded into sermons around the table. We could have recited it by heart.

‘This is how I grew up,’ Papa continued. ‘God was attended to on a Sunday in the same manner my mother scrubbed clothes on a Monday. A chore. The words of the preachers made no impact upon me. I forgot them as soon as I walked out of the church door! And so, I was dead inside. I spent many years without any true spiritual life. Yes, I learned the word of God. But . . .’

He lifted his hand and, stepping over to where Matthias stood, as though he knew he had been laughing at him, poked my brother in the temple. ‘I learned it here . . . not here.’ The finger travelled to Matthias’s chest and prodded him in the sternum.

‘But the Lord did not forsake me. He waited until I became a man and married. He waited until I was nineteen years old and then! He filled this eye with darkness.’

My father took the lantern from Elder Radtke and raised it next to his ear so that everyone could better see the left eye that marred his otherwise handsome face, the pupil listing to the side. Papa lifted his drooping eyelid with a finger to demonstrate its unfocused, wayward slant.

‘At first I thought I was overtired. But when weeks passed and I saw nothing but gloom, I turned my anger upon God.’ Papa closed his hand into a fist and shook it at the forest canopy. ‘How dare He do this to me!

‘Then one night I dreamed I was standing in my orchard. All around me the trees were dead and dying. Fruit was rotting on the ground. I was despairing at the loss and destruction when an angel appeared. Ja, ein Engelwesen! He touched this eye, then – gone. Vanished. I turned to look for him, and I saw that the orchard was not dying at all. The branches were heavy with golden apples. Silver pears. Every leaf shone with the brilliance of emeralds. Ja, the orchard was alive with glory.’

‘Amen,’ muttered someone from the standing rows of men.

I peered over and saw Christian Pasche’s bald head nodding in approval. Hans stood next to him, face impassive.

‘I woke knowing that I had been blessed,’ Papa continued. ‘I woke knowing that the power of the Holy Spirit had attended me as I slept, that this affliction was from God. As I had been blinded, so my spiritual eye had been opened. I was convicted of my sins and for the first time in my life I stepped onto the path of righteousness. While my eye had become dead to this world, it had come alive to the next. Lobe den Herrn in seinem Heiligtum! Praise the Lord in His sanctuary.’